Emmy the Great commissions a comic about her new album

I released a Christmas album last year, and someone on our Facebook kept making amazing fan art to go with it. We tracked him down: his name was Paul Shinn and he was an illustrator/comic book artist. We asked him to make us a bunch of silly strips to give away in our advent calendar. I really loved his style of drawing. It reminded me of innocent Sunday newspaper comics, like Calvin and Hobbes or Garfield.

I thought it would be fun to work together with Shinn again, so we devised a story that led up to the contents of my band’s next music video. Shinn works really quickly. His style is instant and affectionate, and funny. I’m really pleased with what he’s done.

I grew up on comics. Calvin and Hobbes lent me their worldview from a young age, and I never really gave it up. As a kid, I read all the Asterix books, which I still use as reference for all my historical knowledge. Then as I got older, it was Marvel, Buffy, Alan Moore, and beyond. I still regret that my parents threw out my original Clerks comics in a house move. If they’re reading this now: I don’t forgive you. It’s awesome then to have commissioned a comic of my own. Even more awesome that so many lovely people – Isy, Dan Le Sac, CSS, Banjo or Freakout, and my cousin’s band Dems – agreed to be cameoed in it. Stuff like this makes my job fun.